Cat Among the Pigeons (14 page)

‘Yes, indeed, miss,' I said, wishing she wouldn't keep smiling at me as I was trying to keep to my boyish sulks.

‘Then perhaps you'd like one of these?' She took from her capacious reticule a flat pottery disc about the size of my palm. ‘It's made by Mr Wedgwood's manufactory.' I took it from her and saw that it was decorated on one side with a kneeling African in chains. Surrounding him were the words ‘Am I not a man and a brother?' – a line from one of my favourite anti-slavery poems by Cowper.

‘Thank you, miss.'

‘Well, they're a guinea each. We're selling them to raise money for our work.' She gave me an expectant look.

‘Oh.' I blushed an even deeper shade of red. I didn't have a guinea – just the loose change that Mr Sheridan had thrust into my hand up in the Sparrow's Nest and there was no gold among those coins.

‘Here, I've got some money. You can pay me
back later, Tom Cat,' said Frank quickly.

‘Thanks.' The medallion now seemed to be burning my hand as I stuffed it into my jacket. Unfortunately, Milly did not have a tactful bone in her body. Her attempts to make amends for putting me on the spot only made things worse.

‘I do apologize, Mr Tom Cat. Of course, I should have thought that you might not have the means to pay out such a sum. I should have asked Charlie first.'

‘It's all right, miss.'

‘No, it's not. I can see I mortified you. You must never be embarrassed by lack of means.' She cocked her head to one side, examining me closely. ‘I've no doubt your father is an honourable man much respected in the circles he moves in, despite financial constraints. Am I right?'

‘I am an orphan, miss,' I said sullenly.

‘Oh lord, worse and worse! Please forgive me. My family are always telling me that when I get myself in a hole, I must stop digging, but I don't seem able to somehow. I have an instinct
for saying the wrong thing, you could say. So, Mr Tom Cat, you must have a very kind patron who pays your fees, I suppose? Some decent man of good family? You must count yourself very fortunate.'

Her curiosity was relentless. She seemed determined to winkle out of me my family connections. It may have been merely the concern of a sister trying to check that her brother was mixing with the right sort; it may have been that she was plain nosy. I could hardly blame her because curiosity was a sin of which I certainly was guilty.

‘Indeed, miss, I have two very kind patrons without whom I wouldn't be here today.' I gave Frank and Charlie a sly grin.

‘That's better. I'm so pleased to see you smile. I thought I had quite sent you into the doldrums with my foolishness.'

We all watched her drink her tea with hawkish interest. As soon as she had drained her cup, Charlie leapt to his feet.

‘Now that you've finished, let me show you to your carriage, Milly.'

‘My word, Charlie, you're in a hurry to get rid of us, aren't you?'

‘Not at all, sis, not at all. It's just that . . .' Charlie fished around for a plausible excuse.

‘We've got fencing practice in a few minutes and we need to change,' said Frank quickly.

‘Well, in that case, we'd better go. You watch my brother, Mr Tom Cat,' Milly said playfully as she rose. ‘He never showed me any mercy when we were children in the nursery together so I hate to think what he'd do to a boy like you.'

‘Sis, you know that's not true. If I remember, you were the one who was lethal with the hatpin at a very young age,' protested Charlie.

‘Self-defence, Charles, self-defence . . .'

The voices of the Hengraves faded as Charlie led his sister back to the lodge, leaving me alone with the Avons for a few moments.

‘How are you, Cat?' Lizzie said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘I mean, really?'

I gave her a brave smile but her kindness made me feel weak. ‘I'm homesick,' I confessed.

‘Are they treating you well? No one suspects anything?'

‘She's doing brilliantly, Lizzie,' said Frank. ‘Completely convincing.'

‘But what are you going to do?'

‘Do? I'm aiming to be top in my form for Latin and to become a passable fencer,' I joked feebly.

‘Cat, you know what I mean. You can't stay here forever.'

Milly called Lizzie's name from the bottom of the stairs. She straightened her bonnet in the mirror, and tidied her curls ready to leave. I touched my shorn head self-consciously. It was then that the idea hit me.

‘Lizzie, could you help me with something?'

‘Of course. Anything.'

‘Can you send me some things? I might need them at short notice.' I moved to Frank's desk and began a list. ‘I'll write them down for you.'

Lizzie read the list quickly and gave a nod.

‘I'll send them round tomorrow. Is that all you need?'

‘Yes. And thank you.'

She hesitated, then gave me a swift kiss. ‘It feels so strange kissing a boy!' she said with a small laugh and let Frank escort her back to the carriage.

Milly's visit turned out to be but the prelude to something far worse. Frank and Charlie took a long time coming back from the lodge and I began to worry what had happened to them. Perhaps they had met another pupil, or worse a teacher, and Milly had been asked about how she found her younger brother? Would there be footsteps thundering up the stairs any moment now, demanding to know who the impostor was? I listened by the door, tensing myself to make a run for it if necessary. Sure enough, I heard pounding footsteps. I hid behind the door, ready to flee as soon my chance came.

‘Cat! Cat!' It wasn't a teacher or the porter as I had half expected: it was just Frank and Charlie, both of them white as a sheet.

‘Is someone after me?' I asked hastily, craning my head out on to the landing, listening for more footsteps.

‘No.' Frank hauled me back in by the jacket and closed the door with a bang. ‘Look. The boy was just crying the news as we handed Lizzie and Milly into the carriage.' He thrust a newspaper into my hand. The front page was covered in advertisements, but my eyes lit upon the headline.

Mysterious disappearance of the African Ariel

Tonight's performance of
The Tempest
at Drury Lane has had to be cancelled due to the mysterious disappearance of the African known as
Pedro Hawkins
. He went missing some time after four o'clock Tuesday afternoon from the house of his current master,
Signor Luigi Angelini
. No one saw the
African leave the house. Pedro Hawkins' fate has been an issue of great public concern since it has become known that
a former master
claims to own the young African. Immediate enquiries were made with the gentleman in question, but he denied all knowledge of the boy's whereabouts and permitted officers of the law to search his lodgings to prove his innocence.

In place of the advertised programme, Drury Lane will be performing
Macbeth
.

I sat down heavily in the armchair. ‘We didn't save him after all.'

Frank slammed his hand down on the mantelpiece in frustration. ‘I thought he was safe! He was being guarded on the streets and staying indoors, but he's been snatched anyway!'

Charlie squeezed my shoulder. ‘Lizzie and Milly have gone straight to Mr Sharp's. The abolitionists will do all they can.'

‘What
can
they do?' I asked.

‘Mr Sharp can apply in the courts for
habeas corpus
– it's a court order that means that Hawkins will have to produce Pedro if he has him. Mr Sharp's used it before to stop men being taken out of England against their will.'

‘But Hawkins claims he doesn't have him. What good will this habeas thing do if he can get away with pretending he knows nothing about it?'

Charlie fell silent. They both knew I was right. It had to be Hawkins – of course it did – but clearly he had hidden Pedro somewhere with the intent of bypassing the legal channels to get him out of the country. After his humiliation at Drury Lane, Hawkins had probably decided the public pressure to keep Pedro here was too strong for him to fight overtly. He was trying to smuggle Pedro away.

‘We need to act fast,' I said, my mind clicking into action. ‘We've got to get our friends to check the port. It's the obvious place. If he's not sent Pedro there yet, he will.' I closed my eyes,
leaning back in the chair, fighting my panic and fear. I was useless. I couldn't even go to Covent Garden to get a message to Syd and the gang. In Pedro's hour of need, I was stuck learning Latin and pretending to be an Irish landowner's younger son.

‘I'll go,' said Frank, getting up. ‘Make my excuses at Prep for me, Charlie. I've suddenly developed a bad toothache and gone home to see the family tooth puller.'

‘Right you are,' said Charlie.

‘And, Cat, stay put! Charlie, make sure she does!' Frank said, realizing exactly what I was thinking as I sat there with my eyes tight shut. ‘You won't help Pedro by getting caught yourself, Cat. The gang'll look after him – you'll see.'

I nodded, but something told me that it would need more than the Butcher's Boys to find him. As Pedro had warned, Hawkins never forgot and never forgave – he was not a man to let revenge on his slave be denied him.

Frank did not come back that night. I suspected that he had returned to the streets of London to help search for Pedro. I wished I could join him. Charlie was straining at the leash too; only his sense of duty to me stopped him from going. By common consent, neither of us talked about it as we sat by the fire. My mind was too vividly imagining what might be happening to Pedro. I felt sick with anxiety.

‘Well, little brother, I think you'd better turn in for the night,' Charlie said with an attempt at light-heartedness. ‘I'll wake you if Frank returns with any news.'

Glumly, I did as I was told. It made no sense to sit up staring at the coals. I eventually fell asleep sometime after the Abbey bells tolled midnight. Immediately, Pedro appeared in my
dreams – or should I say my nightmares. He was flying up to the sky on his harness, wings fluttering behind him, waving to me. I waved back. Then a sword appeared out of nowhere and sliced through the rope that held him. Pedro plummeted to the floor, screaming.

‘Are you all right?' Charlie was standing beside me in his nightshirt, holding a candle.

‘Y-yes. What's the matter?' I couldn't remember where I was for a moment, thinking myself back in the Sparrow's Nest. Memory returned. ‘Is Frank here yet?'

‘No. It's just that you screamed.'

I slumped back on my pillow. ‘Sorry. I was having a nightmare – about Pedro.'

Charlie nodded. ‘I'm not surprised. I couldn't sleep for thinking of him. I'll get you a glass of water. Try and get some rest.'

He came back with the glass and placed it on the bedside table.

‘Drink this. You can't do any more than you've already done for Pedro.' He sat on the bed
beside me. ‘Try not to fret, little brother. I'll stay here until you're asleep. Don't worry: you're safe with us.'

The water helped – more because of Charlie's kindness thinking of it than because I was thirsty – but it couldn't dull the acute ache of homesickness for Drury Lane and my fear for Pedro. Where was he now?

The following day, Charlie went out early to see if the newspapers carried any more stories about Pedro. There was a short piece on the front page – an appeal by Mr Sharp and Mr Equiano for any information leading to the discovery of the African Ariel – but nothing else.

‘I'm going to send a message to Milly,' Charlie told me over breakfast in the great dining room. ‘I want to find out what the Movement's decided to do.'

As he left, I smoothed the page out and stared at the bald words before me – ‘the African', ‘former slave', ‘missing' – Pedro had been
reduced to a paragraph. It said nothing about my friend, his talents, his quick laugh. The real boy had disappeared too as far as the public were concerned, becoming just an interesting story about a runaway slave. I took out the pottery medallion and looked at the man depicted on its face. It struck me then that, despite Mr Wedgwood's best efforts, this African also seemed a caricature – a clumsy representative of thousands of suffering individuals whose stories would probably never be known.

‘Morning, Hengrave.' Richmond plumped himself down on the bench beside me, slopping porridge on my newspaper. ‘Oops! So sorry about that. What's that you're fondling?'

‘None of your business,' I said sharply, hiding the medallion under the table.

‘Something you're not supposed to have, I don't doubt. A picture of your girlfriend – or your boyfriend perhaps?' Fatty Ingels pushed his way on to the bench on the other side of me, squeezing me between them.